WHAT FACTORS AFFECT CHEATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOL AND WHY?

Cheating in British secondary schools has not been previously researched. The aim of this thesis was to ascertain what factors affect cheating in secondary school and why? Initially, four questions were posed: "what is cheating?', "when is it wrong to cheat?', 'what role do parents play' and 'what are teacher perceptions of cheating compared with those of students?'. These questions were addressed by studying the perspectives of students, parents and teachers using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, involving nearly 1000 respondents in six studies. Two models were developed. The first, a four dimensional model, explained what students thought cheating was. Cheating was perceived to be comprised of the following interrelated dimensions: non-academic and academic behaviours, a temporal component, assessment events and degrees of severity. The second, a decision model, indicated under what circumstances cheating might be right or wrong. Cheating was wrong for respondents who perceived only negative academic associations, whilst It could be right for others, when motives for cheating were perceived to be honourable. Respondents reported the extent to which they were like students in scenarios who were portrayed to have cheated in a variety of ways. Data from parents and teachers were used to test and amplify these models. Students and teachers held similar perceptions regarding cheating frequency, but not severity. Parents held perceptions of cheating that were more extreme than those of students and teachers. The findings of these studies have major implications for those involved in the wider educational environments of the home, school and society. Recommendations are made regarding cun-ent educational testing policies, the promotion of leaming and the reduction of cheating

Solving key design issues for massively multiplayer online games on peer-to-peer architectures

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) are increasing in both popularity and scale on the Internet and are predominantly implemented by Client/Server architectures. While such a classical approach to distributed system design offers many benefits, it suffers from significant technical and commercial drawbacks, primarily reliability and scalability costs. This realisation has sparked recent research interest in adapting MMOGs to Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures. This thesis identifies six key design issues to be addressed by P2P MMOGs, namely interest management, event dissemination, task sharing, state persistency, cheating mitigation, and incentive mechanisms. Design alternatives for each issue are systematically compared, and their interrelationships discussed. How well representative P2P MMOG architectures fulfil the design criteria is also evaluated. It is argued that although P2P MMOG architectures are developing rapidly, their support for task sharing and incentive mechanisms still need to be improved. The design of a novel framework for P2P MMOGs, Mediator, is presented. It employs a self-organising super-peer network over a P2P overlay infrastructure, and addresses the six design issues in an integrated system. The Mediator framework is extensible, as it supports flexible policy plug-ins and can accommodate the introduction of new superpeer roles. Key components of this framework have been implemented and evaluated with a simulated P2P MMOG. As the Mediator framework relies on super-peers for computational and administrative tasks, membership management is crucial, e.g. to allow the system to recover from super-peer failures. A new technology for this, namely Membership-Aware Multicast with Bushiness Optimisation (MAMBO), has been designed, implemented and evaluated. It reuses the communication structure of a tree-based application-level multicast to track group membership efficiently. Evaluation of a demonstration application shows i that MAMBO is able to quickly detect and handle peers joining and leaving. Compared to a conventional supervision architecture, MAMBO is more scalable, and yet incurs less communication overheads. Besides MMOGs, MAMBO is suitable for other P2P applications, such as collaborative computing and multimedia streaming. This thesis also presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a novel task mapping infrastructure for heterogeneous P2P environments, Deadline-Driven Auctions (DDA). DDA is primarily designed to support NPC host allocation in P2P MMOGs, and specifically in the Mediator framework. However, it can also support the sharing of computational and interactive tasks with various deadlines in general P2P applications. Experimental and analytical results demonstrate that DDA efficiently allocates computing resources for large numbers of real-time NPC tasks in a simulated P2P MMOG with approximately 1000 players. Furthermore, DDA supports gaming interactivity by keeping the communication latency among NPC hosts and ordinary players low. It also supports flexible matchmaking policies, and can motivate application participants to contribute resources to the system

WISE Abstraction Framework for Wireless Networks

Current wireless networks commonly consist of nodes with different capabilities (e.g., laptops and PDAs). Link quality such as link error rate and data transmit rate can differ widely. For efficient operation, the design of wireless networks must take into account such heterogeneity among nodes and wireless links. We present systematic approaches to overcome problems due to heterogeneous node capability and link quality in wireless networks. We first present a general framework called WISE (Wireless Integration Sublayer Extension) that abstracts specific details of low-level wireless communication technologies (e.g., modulation or backoff scheme). WISE provides a set of common primitives, based on which upper-level protocols can operate efficiently without knowing the underlying details. We also present a number of protocol extensions that employ the WISE framework to enhance the performance of specific upper-level protocols while hiding lower-level heterogeneity (e.g., link error rate). Our multihop WLAN architecture improves system performance by allowing client nodes to use multihop paths via other clients to reach an AP. Our geographic routing extension considers both location and link quality in the next hop selection, which leads to optimal paths under certain conditions. To address heterogeneity in node capability, we consider virtual routing backbone construction in two settings: cooperative and selfish. In the cooperative setting, we present a protocol extension that constructs an optimal backbone composed of a small number of high-capability nodes, which can be generalized to a more resilient backbone. For the selfish case, we use game theory and design an incentive-compatible backbone construction scheme. We evaluate our work from multiple perspectives. We use theoretical analysis to prove that our extensions lead to optimal solutions. We use simulations to experiment with our schemes in various scenarios and real-world implementation to understand the performance in practice. Our experiment results show that our schemes significantly outperform existing schemes

On Enhancing Security of Password-Based Authentication

Password has been the dominant authentication scheme for more than 30 years, and it will not be easily replaced in the foreseeable future. However, password authentication has long been plagued by the dilemma between security and usability, mainly due to human memory limitations. For example, a user often chooses an easy-to-guess (weak) password since it is easier to remember. The ever increasing number of online accounts per user even exacerbates this problem. In this dissertation, we present four research projects that focus on the security of password authentication and its ecosystem. First, we observe that personal information plays a very important role when a user creates a password. Enlightened by this, we conduct a study on how users create their passwords using their personal information based on a leaked password dataset. We create a new metric---Coverage---to quantify the personal information in passwords. Armed with this knowledge, we develop a novel password cracker named Personal-PCFG (Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars) that leverages personal information for targeted password guessing. Experiments show that Personal-PCFG is much more efficient than the original PCFG in cracking passwords. The second project aims to ease the password management hassle for a user. Password managers are introduced so that users need only one password (master password) to access all their other passwords. However, the password manager induces a single point of failure and is potentially vulnerable to data breach. To address these issues, we propose BluePass, a decentralized password manager that features a dual-possession security that involves a master password and a mobile device. In addition, BluePass enables a hand-free user experience by retrieving passwords from the mobile device through Bluetooth communications. In the third project, we investigate an overlooked aspect in the password lifecycle, the password recovery procedure. We study the password recovery protocols in the Alexa top 500 websites, and report interesting findings on the de facto implementation. We observe that the backup email is the primary way for password recovery, and the email becomes a single point of failure. We assess the likelihood of an account recovery attack, analyze the security policy of major email providers, and propose a security enhancement protocol to help securing password recovery emails by two factor authentication. \newline Finally, we focus on a more fundamental level, user identity. Password-based authentication is just a one-time checking to ensure that a user is legitimate. However, a user\u27s identity could be hijacked at any step. For example, an attacker can leverage a zero-day vulnerability to take over the root privilege. Thus, tracking the user behavior is essential to examine the identity legitimacy. We develop a user tracking system based on OS-level logs inside an enterprise network, and apply a variety of techniques to generate a concise and salient user profile for identity examination

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The utility and accuracy of post-conviction polygraph testing with sex offenders

The aims of the present research were two-fold: firstly, to investigate the utility of post-conviction polygraphy with community-based sex offenders; and secondly, to examine the accuracy of the polygraph in this context. The initial study examined whether periodic polygraph testing acted as a deterrent for engaging in risk behaviour. Fifty adult male sex offenders taking part in community treatment programs were allocated into 2 groups: "Polygraph Aware" subjects were told they would receive a polygraph examination in 3 months regarding their high-risk behaviours, while "Polygraph Unaware" subjects were told their behaviour would be reviewed in 3 months. Relevant behaviours for each subject were established at baseline interviews, following which both groups were polygraphed at 3 months. All subjects were polygraphed again at 6 months. Thirty-two subjects (64%) attended the first polygraph examination, with 31 (97%) disclosing an average of 2.45 high-risk behaviours each previously unknown to supervising probation officers. There was no significant difference between the two groups. Twenty-one subjects (42%) completed the second polygraph test, with 71% disclosing an average of 1.57 behaviours, a significant decrease compared with the first test. Disclosures to treatment providers and probation officers also increased. Polygraph testing resulted in offenders engaging in less high-risk behaviour, although the possibility that offenders fabricated reports of high-risk behaviours to satisfy examiners is also considered; similarly offenders seemed to be more honest with their supervisors, but this only occurred after the experience of the test itself. The second study examined the accuracy of the polygraph as used in a postconviction context with sex offenders. One hundred and seventy-six sex offenders engaged in treatment and required to complete biannual polygraph tests focussed upon offending and other risk behaviours. The participant's regular polygraph maintenance test was used for the study, however, in addition to the regular issues covered in this test the examiner included `drug use' over the preceding three months as a relevant question. Immediately after the polygraph test a hair specimen was collected and subsequently analysed for drugs. The polygraph was reasonably accurate with identifying truth telling (79%), while 21% were wrongly accused of drug use. Only a small number of offenders (n = 5) were found to be taking drugs and lying about having done so. The blind scorers correctly identified all of these individuals (100%). The Area under the curve index was . 88. The inter-rater reliability between the blind scorers and the original examiners was poor. The original examiners were less accurate than the blind scorers (Area under the curve index = . 68) and only correctly identified two of the five liars (40%). False positives were associated with lower intelligence and having experienced a sanction due to a polygraph result. False negatives were not associated with demographic characteristics, personality variables or intelligence. The majority of offenders found the polygraph to be helpful in both treatment and supervision. Nine per cent of offenders claimed to have made false disclosures; these individuals -had higher scores on ratings of Neuroticism and lower scores on ratings of Conscientiousness. The implications of these results are discussed. Overall, the findings support the view that the polygraph is both useful and accurate in the treatment and supervision of sex offenders.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A social contract model of ‘disintegrity’ within the dual-process paradigm of moral psychology: Reducing the scope of the ‘belief-behavior incongruity’

Explaining why students cheat when it violates their moral beliefs, also called the ‘belief-behavior incongruity’ (BBI), is a difficult challenge most often overcome by referring to neutralization techniques, first described by Sykes and Matza (1957), whereby individuals deceive themselves with specious justifications for ignoring the moral imperative to follow rules. An underlying assumption of the neutralization view, that individuals’ abstract moral beliefs apply automatically to all contexts, is critiqued in the present work. The account of academic dishonesty developed herein is centered on the hypothesis that adolescent students’ felt moral obligation is informed by an intuitive sense of reciprocity between themselves and their learning contexts, which resembles a social contract, or ‘psychological teaching- learning contract’ (PTLC). Students who regard a class context or teacher more negatively are thus expected to feel less moral obligation to follow rules, and to cheat more as a result. The hypothesized PTLC model, which included key variables related to (A) self-concept, (B) achievement goal structure, (C) learning strategies, (D) moral obligation, and (E) social comparison theory, was tested with data from a diverse sample of secondary students in fifteen international schools across Asia, Europe, and Africa. A pilot study (N = 96) of the construct validity of psychometric measures was conducted prior to the Main Study, which included a Time 1 sample of N = 493, a Time 2 sample of N = 297 (spaced by approximately one year), and a longitudinal matched sample of N = 225. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to test the validity and invariance of the measurement model, as well as the structural relations hypothesized between variables. A small degree of gender non-invariance prompted separate analyses of gender-specific models. Results supported the PTLC hypothesis. Moral obligation overwhelmingly mediated the effects of perceived class quality on academic integrity, indicating that students felt morally obliged to be honest in a given class, as a function of their regard for its quality